The goblet, the archway into the old town,
the snowwhite V of a sapling in early fork,
the many porcelain ‘O’s of a Christmas choir.
A cold crystal runs its counterwind over the
hoods of the shuffling pilgrims, frugal with
complaint as if expecting some Andean rebuke.
A lost dog stamps in tight circles, spied on by death’s
little foxes.
The lazy stars, low on the wrecked horizon, spell out
a prayer of blue lights and the cold doesn’t lessen
with the sun’s weak rejoicing.
But rejoice indeed at the hare’s successful bolt,
the green shoots needling the ice,
the ovals in their exponential sightings,
the bare-breasted goddess of foam and love
making faces behind her eulogists’ backs.